Do the Project

If your application is approved and you obtain the necessary resources, e.g., an IMLS grant award, you will carry out the activities you planned in the previous phases and file project reports as specified for the funding category. You will evaluate the extent to which the project goals are being met, and you will monitor your project budget, schedule, and resources. At the conclusion of the project, you will decide on the next steps to take. If the project is successful, you will implement the plan you developed in the Activities unit to sustain your project's results.

Even though this phase is not covered in detail in this tutorial, keep it in mind as you plan your project and write your application.

• Carry out the activities that you developed during the Plan the Project phase: requirements, design and development, testing, and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and sustainability.
• National Leadership Grants have specific grant periods, with start and end dates stated in the grant award notice. Your project activities should fit both the amount of time (usually two to three years) and the start and end dates appropriate to the NLG category of funding. The same situation may be true of other funding programs.
• Make sure that all stakeholders are appropriately informed about the project's activities. Consult and update the strategy you developed in Stakeholders and communication.
• Ensure that the activities are helping you achieve the targets you selected in the unit Evaluation approach.
• Confirm that all required personnel, material and financial resources have been allocated to their respective activities and that they are available when needed.
• Check to make sure that the risk strategies you developed in the unit Target audience needs analysis are implemented if needed. If unanticipated risks arise, develop other appropriate strategies.

	Monitoring and evaluation

As you implement your project, you will also be continually tracking its progress through your monitoring activities and periodically measuring the extent to which the project is achieving its goals through your evaluation activities. You will use the Schedule and resource plan and the Evaluation approach you developed in the Plan the Project phase.

Monitoring

During this phase, you (or the project director or manager) will keep track on a regular basis of the deadlines and the milestones ("mini-targets") in the project schedule, as well as the project's human and material resources, and its budget.

• If deadlines or milestones are not met, or if you exceed the budget, identify the causes and take appropriate corrective actions. If you are significantly under your budget, check to see that you are undertaking all the activities you had planned.
• If you are making your deadlines and milestones, and you are staying within your budget, think of ways to sustain or reinforce what you are doing that seems to be working.

Make sure that you keep your project stakeholders appropriately informed (e.g., through regular project status reports) of the results of the regular monitoring of your project's plans.

Evaluation

In addition to carrying out these monitoring activities, you (or the project director and/or persons assigned to evaluate the project) will periodically collect and analyze data to measure the extent to which the project has achieved its goals, based on the Evaluation approach. Compare the results of your analysis with the targets you selected. If your project does not meet one or more of the targets, collaborate with the appropriate stakeholders on what steps should be taken. One possible step is to review the entire project plan.

Your evaluation activities plan also included meeting formal or informal requirements for reporting on your project's performance to grant-making institutions, e.g. IMLS, as well as to other stakeholders. The final report, which should reflect input from key stakeholders, typically includes:

• review of the project's goals
• data collected from the project's evaluation approach
• interpretation of the data
• "lessons learned"
• recommendations for improving future projects

As you carry out your plan, keep in mind your stakeholders' requirements for the types of information they want to receive about the project's performance, how they want to receive it (e.g., format), and the timing (e.g., deadlines) for receiving it.

	Sustainability

The results of your evaluation will determine how you will move on after the grant period is over.

If your project has successfully met its targets, you will want to sustain and disseminate those results after the conclusion of the project. In the Activities unit of the Plan the Project phase, you developed a plan for accomplishing this important activity.

If the project does not meet its targets within the grant, you (and your stakeholders) could consider modifying components of the project so that you will be able to achieve your targets after the grant period is over. If the needs and wants of your organization, your target audience, or other stakeholders have changed, you may need to go back and modify your goals. Consider starting a new phase of the project or a new project based on the previous one.

As you prepare your final report on the grant project, IMLS will want to know about the project's successes, as well as targets that were not met and why. This information can help other organizations learn from your experiences.

Congratulations!

You have completed the NLG Project Planning tutorial.